Friday, February 18, 2005

Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Leader!

I never really thought of myself as the kind of person that would end up in a cult, but here I am.

This isn't your run-of-the-mill cult though, oh no, this one is something special.

This, my friends, is the cult of parenting (A Living Colour B-Side if there ever was one.)

For the last few weeks, I've been trying to think of the best way to describe parenting to our friends that don't have children yet, and couldn't ever really put my finger on it. But when I spent a good deal of time thinking about it, this was really the only conclusion that made sense.I broke it down to the following points.

1. You spend all of your time and money on your "leader."

This one makes a ton of sense. Gaby is 11 weeks old and I can't walk into any store without finding something for her. I'm sure within the next few weeks, I'll be walking by a head-shop on State St. and wonder to myself, "I bet I can find her a nice, pink colored bong?"

2. You talk to all of your friends and try to "convince" them how great it is to be a parent, even though you're broke and tired all of the time.

I touched upon this in an earlier article, but if you ask any new parent what it's like to have a baby, all you'll hear is about how great it is and how much fun they are, and do everything you can to convince other people that they need to have kids too. But when you're actually home with your baby, they rule over you with an iron-baby-fist. You're a willing slave to their every whim and you have to do everything you can to please them, every moment of each day. Oh, yeah... and you have to smile while you're doing it. Before you know it, you're changing a diaper and you're saying, "Thank you Ma'am. May I have another?"

3. You're forced into wearing a certain style of clothing

I can't remember the last time I saw new parents wearing nice clothes when they're taking care of their kids. If so, they're just asking for it. Most of the time you're wearing sweat pants and sneakers and praying that they "bless" your clothing that day.

4. Eventually they'll have you drinking lots and lots of Kool-Aid

All that's left for her is to start building up a stockpile of weapons or telling us about the designs for the spaceship that will take us away.

So if you see me walking down the road and mumbling, "Join us! Join Us!" Please just give me a dollar and keep on walking... and try to have kids very soon.